Monolithic silicon photonic 32x32 thin-CLOS AWGR for all-to-all interconnections

Area of Science:

• Photonics
• Integrated Optics
• Optical Interconnection Networks

Background:

• Scalable all-to-all interconnection fabrics are crucial for high-performance computing and data centers.
• Existing silicon photonic solutions face challenges in port count and integration density.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, fabricate, and demonstrate a monolithic 32x32 silicon photonic Thin-CLOS arrayed waveguide grating router (AWGR).
• To enable scalable silicon photonic all-to-all interconnection fabrics with high performance.

Main Methods:

• Integration of four 16-port silicon nitride AWGRs using a multi-layer waveguide routing method.
• Fabrication of a monolithic silicon photonic (SiPh) 32x32 Thin-CLOS device.
• Experimental demonstration of the device's performance.

Main Results:

• Achieved 4 dB insertion loss.
• Demonstrated adjacent channel crosstalk below -15 dB.
• Achieved non-adjacent channel crosstalk below -20 dB.
• Successfully demonstrated error-free communication at 25 Gb/s.

Conclusions:

• The fabricated 32x32 SiPh Thin-CLOS AWGR is a viable solution for scalable photonic interconnection fabrics.
• The multi-layer integration and compact design enable high port counts.
• The demonstrated performance metrics support its application in high-speed data communication.